


Alone

by robin_orpheus



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Loneliness, Post-Stranger Things 3, Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington Friendship, Steve Harrington Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:00:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25290532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robin_orpheus/pseuds/robin_orpheus
Summary: On a quiet sunday night, Steve feels alone and haunted by everything that happened. The Upside Down, the Demogorgons, almost getting killed infiltrating a secret Russian underground base. He wishes that he for once didn't have to feel so alone.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 23





	Alone

**Author's Note:**

> hey! just a fanfic i've had the idea to write for some time now but never finished :') i love steve. hope you enjoy!

Days blended into one. Same thing day in and day out. He worked a couple of hours at the video store, spent time with the kids, spent time with Robin or on his own. Once upon a time college had been in sight. A future career working beneath his father. Add a white picket fence, a suburban house, a wife, two children and maybe a dog and boom you had the American dream. Good thing was that none of those things were ever to be his future, much to his father's dismay. He was this huge stain on the Harrington family. Steve was aware that his parents were disappointed in him. Not that he cared.

Back in the "good old days" if those days were even to be considered good (debatable) he spent his usual sunday nights throwing a massive party or a small one where he just invited Tommy and Carol. Nowadays though Steve could be found sitting in his couch flipping through every channel and tv program imaginable all alone. He clicked again and again and again.. Cheers.. Miami Vice.. Nothing interested him, Steve tossed the remote away onto the empty table and it landed with a thud. 

His stomach craved food, yet the motivation to prepare anything other than a bowl of cereal had diminished. Steve knew how to cook. For years he had done so on his own. But recently he had felt no urge to do so. And living off cereal and milk had become an inevitable daily habit. But at five in the evening he didn't feel like making anything. He sank deeper into the comfort of the couch and the pillows. Wanting to sleep but not able to because of the fear of what closing his eyes would do.

The house he lived in lacked any sort of personality. Just all for show and tell. A perfect facade to uphold the Harrington name and to uphold their "important reputation". Who cared anyways? What a goddamn "perfect" family they were. His family were never even home. Why did they care so much about what impression the house that they lived in gave off. It was nothing like the Wheelers' house or the Hendersons' - which actually had personality and looked like someone was actually living there. Why couldn't he have that family that was always there for each other and lived in a house cluttered with things that told visitors 'This is us?' A few portraits hung here and there on the walls and a few stood alone in the massive bookshelf. Nothing more, nothing less. Sensible and adequate, as his mother put it. 

Steve had stopped asking that question about why he couldn't have a perfect, close-knitted family once he turned twelve when the realization that his life would never be like that hit. Hoping for it was a waste of time. His parents didn't care, so why should he care about his parents who only cared for themselves?

Very few people in Steve's life cared about him, well, up until the post-events of the whole Upside Down shit. Up until that point it had been Tommy and Carol. They'd known each other since first grade. Basically had been the three musketeers. But it took him a while to understand what a shitty person they made him. They were toxic. And thus he let them go. Then came Nancy. He still cared for her. They were friends and all, but did she really care about him? And the kids. Weird how probably his only friends were a bunch of children younger than him. Although, for the first time in a long time he had actually made a friend that was his own age: Robin.

Robin, Robin, Robin. Where should he even start? Robin was incredible. He'd harbored a tiny crush on her until she came out on the gross and disgusting bathroom floor post-being-drugged-by-russians. Now he just thought about her platonically. She was still the best thing that had ever happened to him. 

Steve turned off the tv and drowned in the eerie silence. All of his body ached after several nights of poor sleep filled with nightmares of being tortured by russians or being stuck in a small and enclosed space without any way of escaping. 

Maybe Dustin could come over, or he'd offer to babysit the party. Perhaps he would drive over to the Hendersons and join Mrs Henderson and Dustin in on dinner. Mrs Henderson cooked a lovely chicken casserole. And she thought Steve was a sweet and nice young man for running around looking after the kids all the time. And Dustin looked up to Steve as a mentor and older brother. The kid was one of a kind.

Anything would do to fill the lonely wound. Steve slid down from his sitting position on the couch and stared up at the white ceiling. 

Everything he had gone through in the last couple of years somehow always managed to sneak back up on him when everything was tranquil. He'd fill the silence with music, the sound of the tv, or sitting up for hours talking to Robin on the phone. Anything to distract him from what he wishes he could forget. Of everything that exists. Demogorgons, the lab, the Upside Down. 

If all of it was just a bad nightmare he'd wake up happy and content. But no. As he woke up from nightmare after nightmare he was hit with the dreadful reality of what actually existed beyond the normalcy of what was typical for a small town in Indiana. So much more existed to worry about than unimportant squabbles, popularity, drama or stupid teenage parties and getting drunk. 

Who was dating who and who was fucking who. None of that stuff actually mattered. In the grand scheme of things they were nothing. The silence sure was making him an existentialist, who could blame him? Steve rolled onto his side and stared at the television.

He had talked to Robin about the nightmares, though not to the kids. They had their own emotional weight to carry. And their own stuff to worry about. Steve didn't want to dump any more onto them. He felt uncomfortable doing so. Talking to a therapist wasn't an option either. For sure they'd lock him up in a mental institution if he started blabbering about monsters and other dimensions. 

If Dustin knew how bad the nightmares were the kid would never leave his side. So he pretended everything was alright. Not unused to it, Steve found no difficulty in putting up a fake facade. Growing up he had become a master at pretending. 

The pool outside the glass windows haunted him.

God how he hated that pool. They had been such cliches. He had been such a cliche, to quote Nancy. Getting drunk. Nancy and him going upstairs to "change clothes". Leaving Barb all alone. And then it had happened. Just because they were selfish enough to leave her. Barb's death was his fault. Steve couldn't stop telling himself that. Nancy had insisted that it wasn't his fault, but he knew she was lying. Steve also knew Nancy blamed herself more than anyone, but when it all came down to it it had been him who had asked Nancy out during Math class. 

Inviting her to his group, plus Barb who Tommy and Carol wouldn't stop making fun of despite him telling them to shut up. Him who had decided to throw a party while his parents were off on another of their business trips in New York. It was all because of him. The king of Hawkins High himself. King Steve. Thinking back to his former title felt silly. Like a distant old memory. It had never been him. It had always been an act. 

Pretending to be someone he was not just in order to reach popularity. Something that in the moment felt so important. He'd truly been a jerk. Maybe not as much as Billy had been though. Less intense, but still a douchebag. A jerk to everyone. To Jonathan. To Nancy. To Robin. And while Tommy and Carol had been some of his only friends, they had never made him a better person. Just worse. Unlike Robin. Robin. She was really something else. She made him a better person. 

Steve went to the phone and rang Robin's number. Her mother answered and called for Robin, who came to the phone within seconds.

"What is it, Dingus?"

"Want to like, come over or something? And maybe watch a movie?"

"I'll be right there!" She hung up before he could reply. 

And the tight wound in his chest lessened a bit at the prospect of hanging out with Robin. 

For once, he felt okay. And not so alone anymore.


End file.
